


But Here's The Good Part

by westandvigilant



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 08:57:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6651343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westandvigilant/pseuds/westandvigilant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a series of AUs based on a "right to the good parts" list.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Time

**Author's Note:**

> i. I have you shoved against the wall but now I can’t stop looking at your mouth  
> ii. We were dancing but all of a sudden it’s a slow song and we’re standing here awkwardly staring at each other  
> iii. I just told you I liked you but now I’m shy and say “never mind, forget it” and why are you looking at me like that?

i. pirates.

His back crashes against the wall and the very bowels of the ships creak around them. His fingers are soft, collapsing quietly as her own calloused palms fold against them. He is tall, but she is strong. A gold tooth glints in the dark of her smile.

“Oh, you are a silly, silly pretty boy,” she laughs. Whiskey warm and sweet. Her breath trickles down his tenderly exposed neck. 

“And you are a pirate, miss.” He sneers it, an impossibly sensuous lip lifting over immaculate teeth. 

“Tsk, tsk, boy. I’m the commander. Didn’t you see my hat?”

“I see nothing but a pathetic slattern who steals the profits they could never earn.”

“Ah, spoken like a true aristocrat.” His mouth turns downward at her words, a lovely thing that would be ugly had it not been so captivating. Éponine can’t help the way her traitorous hips move forward, grinding against her captive’s narrow ones. She doesn’t even bother pretending that it was to keep him pinned in place.

She can feel the weight of his stare burning into her face, but her gaze doesn’t budge. It is tethered to the fine curve of his cupid’s bow when he begins to speak once more.

She swallows his words as her lips crash into his. They are smooth and cool and surprised and just as heavenly as she could have imagined. He is stock still until he returns her ravaging softy, slowly. Then she stops, quite as abruptly as she began, leaving him with one last peck at the corner of his mouth.

That gold tooth glints again in her grin. She pats his cheek. “You’ll be better next time, I’m sure.”

 

ii. 1950′s.

They’re still on the dance floor.

Long Tall Sally has melted into I Was The One and now everyone is partnering up and swaying together and moving so close and Jesus, Enjolras has never felt so stupid.

His hands fidget with the letter on his jacket while he tries to think of a smooth way to duck out.

But Éponine still stands there. Amber eyes laughing. Her wry lips red and smirking. She pops her gum and twirls her pony tail. The dim light of the gym cascades down the elegant lines of her exposed collarbones.

This is the last time he lets Courfeyrac talk him into calling some greaser girl’s bluff.

Finally, she takes pity on him. She rolls her eyes and grabs his hands, slinging one over her shoulder and sliding the other against her waist. Heat rises all over his skin, incapable of doing anything more than shuffling his wingtips.

Not that she minds. Soon she’s tucked her pretty little head against his shoulder and they’re swaying and Elvis is crooning and he feels perfectly content.

 

iii. regency.

“Pardon me, Sir?”

There’s no way she could have heard him right, she knows. Barons - and their sons - don’t harbor feelings like that for those that scrub their floors and cook their food. These are things that Éponine knows for sure. 

Yet, she couldn’t shake the unmistakable gravity that pulls them together. A tie that keeps her name in his mouth. That weights his gaze so heavy against her back that she can feel it when she isn’t even sure he is present.

But that he has grown to like her company?

That is not something that Barons - or their sons - say to lowborn women with the morning’s breakfast still under their fingernails.

A flush creeps from under the collar of his shirt and across the marble of his noble features. His steady gaze now flickers, from one end of the garden to the next. A breeze ruffles a golden curl onto his forehead as she watches, frozen.

“Nothing, miss,” he turns to leave, his hands clasped behind his back. “Think nothing of it.”

She has no idea what she thinks will happen, what she thinks this will accomplish and, in short, she does not seem to be thinking in the least when she reaches out and encircles her hand around his wrist. He stops dead in his tracks, his silence almost as loud as his fine speeches.

“I like your company as well, my lord.” Her voice sounded impossibly small.

Then, Enjolras did something that a Baron - or their son - would, decidedly, never do: He turned, placed his left hand upon her own where it still hung at his right wrist, and left a chaste kiss against her calloused fingers.


	2. Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> iv. We slept in the same bed for space reasons but now we’re just waking up and there’s something about your bleary eyes and mussed hair  
> v. It’s time to fight the boss and if I don’t tell you now, I might not live to tell you  
> vi. Congratulations! One of your dreams has finally come true. Let me give you a big hug and wow, you’re warm…

iv. dragon age.

It only takes a moment for her to realize that it is Enjolras’ arms shivering violently around her when she wakes. His breath crystallizes hard in the scant space between them, only just visible in the cavern of their shared bedroll. 

The sun has barely begun to seep through the treeline, pooling silver atop the frozen creek in front of them. And yet it still manages to catch in his golden hair, a smoldering silhouette against the bright winter dark. She almost finds it frustrating. But, Creators, he is beautiful.

“You know,” she rasps, letting mana spark to her fingertips, “I’m one of those dreaded elven apostates. I could fix that chill for you. Its the least I can do for the idiot Orlesian shem who considers himself my savior.”

His brow creases wonderfully and his adam’s apple bobs with a swallow. He opens one steady fugitive’s eye to scrutinize her. To her surprise, he does not drop her or squawk about their undignified positions. 

Instead, Enjolras slips his almost too soft palms beneath her robes and presses a momentary kiss onto her lips. She smiles into him, parting her lips to deepen the kiss. Languid and slow and completely unlike the last two days of running.

The sun begins to crest into the sky as they part. His eyes shine like sapphires against the dew. A stiff breeze blows a lock of dark hair into her eyes and her tucks it behind her ear with a satisfied, sleepy smile.

He clears his throat. “I am not interested in providing the Templars with the smoke to find our exact location.”

Éponine, in response, curled closer into his chest and smiled her wolfish smile: “Well, then, good Ser, I’ll just have to find another way to warm you up.”

—

 

v. resident evil.

She’s shoving bullet after bullet into her rifle, lips soundlessly counting the number fitting into the clip. It’s not enough. He knows it. She knows it. There’s no use pretending that their death is anything other than inevitable.

At this point, he’s proud of her badge. The silver shield that says RCPD above her heart. She’d saved him even when she knew this was all his fault. That he was the reason everyone they both knew transformed into flesh eating monsters.

Well, maybe if there had been more cops like Éponine Thénardier, he wouldn’t have had to wage war on Umbrella himself. Wouldn’t have ended up releasing the T-Virus…

But then he wouldn’t have met her. He would have never seen the grace in her body as she leaped from roof to roof. Never have seen the relief in her eyes when she saved survivor after survivor. The throatiness of her laugh when she showed him the proper way to holster a gun.

He knows he can’t speak. Not really. He knows that the thing that was once Javert, this Nemesis, was only on the other side of those sliding metal doors.

It’s now or never and there are some risks worth taking.

She finishes loading her handgun last and tucks it into her belt before giving him a nod. He doesn’t even try to stop himself from reaching out and touching the inky waves cascading from her ponytail, slipping his other hand over her grime covered cheek.

“Éponine, I-”

“I know, Enjolras, I know,” she whispers, eyes watery despite the set of her jaw.

A smile flickers across his lips. “You know,” he repeats. 

She rolls her eyes in her annoyingly flirty way and places a thumb against his bottom lip.

“Now let’s go kick some ass.”

—

 

vi. uncharted.

The tears come hot and fast, exhausting every fiber of her body. She clutches the ring strung on her necklace tightly in her hand as she doubles over the tomb.

A warm palm is tentatively placed between her shoulder blades and she can hear Enjolras put down his video camera.

“I’m sorry,” she manages to breathe out. “I’ve just been,” a deep breath and she straightens up, “I’ve been looking for him a long time.” Another inhale, this time accompanied with a laugh. “Sir Francis Drake.”

She turns around and… Well. It’s not that she mistakes Enjolras’ body language. He’s some journalist that she known for the better part of 24 hours, but she’s pretty sure she knows him well enough to know that he’s probably not a hugger.

But, she can’t help it. The emotions pouring out of her demand an outlet and somehow she’s hugging Enjolras full around the waist, her head resting against his shoulder. Her hips angled into his by pure accident. The smell of sea salt and sandalwood and lens cleaner envelopes her.

Enjolras resists for a second before giving in, circling an arm around her shoulders. Éponine buries her head deeper into his chest and, even more surprising, he nuzzles into her hair. 

“Congratulations,” he murmurs, a smile evident in the soft lilt of his brash voice.

If only the sound of boat motors and pirates hadn’t drowned it out.


End file.
